Deuteronomy 4:1-8 This Great Nation

Welcome to Recast Church, where we're growing in faith, community, and service. You're listening to a message by Pastor Kyle Douglas from the book of Deuteronomy, from a series entitled, Clinging to God on the Way from Here to There.

If you'd like more information about Recast Church, check us out at recastchurch .com or you can find us on Facebook. Here's Pastor Kyle.

Again, welcome to Recast. We're thankful that you're here. You know, this is church, everybody. We come because, obviously, hopefully you want to worship with us, you want to hear the Word of God, but hopefully you come because of the people, too.

I mean, this is a chance to get to know people. Maybe you already know your friends and church family here, but we're glad that you're here. So a couple things, always, worship folders, hopefully you got a little piece of paper when you came in or a little folded piece, has a little picture on it.

That has most of our announcements in it. Please read through that so you're up to speed on what's happening here at Recast. Inside that also is a connection card. It's a small piece of paper where you can write your name and contact information, a couple different ways that you can connect with us.

If you want to hear more from us or connect with the pastor, you can mark that there. I would ask this week, actually, at the start of the fall, so our kids' ministry kicks off today, that if you could fill that out, even if you think we already have your information, maybe your email is updated or you have a new cell phone number, just fill it out and drop it in and we can sort through it.

But it really helps us to have your updated contact information, so that might be good.

For you to do.

Also, an offering envelope, if you want to give a gift to the Lord, then please use that envelope, put it in there, and then drop it in that black box back there on that table. That table also has other information, including mugs that you can take if you're a first-time visitor here as a gift from us.

All right.

If you would indulge me for a minute, would you please raise your right hand if you are a citizen—thank you, Pete, preemptive, preemptive—would you please raise your right hand if you are a citizen of the United States of America?

I'm guessing most of us, we have had a couple of international visitors, which is awesome, but I would say that most of us are citizens of the United States. Based on your citizenship, I think that you will have no problem with the following.

I'm going to give you some of the questions that come on the standard civics exam for all emigrating persons into the United States. So let's see if you really are a knowledgeable citizen of the United States.

First question, please. Number one, what is the supreme law of the land? The Constitution. Please reveal the answer there. So far, so good. Did anyone not know that? Don't raise your hand, it's embarrassing.

Question number two, what do we call the first ten amendments to the Constitution?

Bill of Rights.

Good job. Middle school social studies. Bill of Rights. Next question, please. What is freedom of religion? Part of our nation, obviously, is freedom of religion, and they require that those who come to be citizens understand what this involves.

Anyone want to venture a guess? Okay, that's part of it. You can practice any religion that you want, or you may not practice a religion. Take a look at the answer.

Two parts.

You can practice any religion or not practice a religion. Fundamental part of being an American is that you have this right. Next question.

Uh-oh.

Getting a little harder. Who is one of your state's U .S. Senators right now? I don't know that I could have answered this, so this is about where I fall off the wagon,.

Okay?

Who are our Senators right now? Carl Levin, Debbie Stabenow. Yeah, booze, right? Yeah, whatever. We're not being political here. We're just sharing facts, okay? Next question. If both the President and the Vice President can no longer serve, who becomes President?

Speaker of the House. You guys are good. Like, that was like, people just jumped right on that. Answer, please. Speaker of the House. And this may come up later, but please pay attention to that photo.

That's all I'm saying. Next question. Name one right only for United States citizens. The right to bear arms is not one of them. Voting and run for federal office. Answers, please. Vote in a federal election and run for federal office.

Only reserved to U .S. citizens. Next question. Last one. What is one of the six promises that you make when you become a United States citizen? To support the Constitution. By the way, if you're a citizen, you inherently promise to do these things.

Probably a good idea to know them, right? Next question. Or the answers. Let's see what they are. Give up loyalty to all other countries. Defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States. Obey the laws of the United States.

Serve in the U .S. military if required of you. Serve, do important work for the nation if needed. And be loyal to the United States. How many of you, that's actually new info. Born and raised here, you immigrated, but you did not know that that is part of what is required of you as a citizen.

Go to the next slide there. So we do this little quiz, and if you're like me, you know, I go through these questions and I realize, like, wow, I think I'm a pretty good American, but maybe, maybe I got some.

Work to do, right?

Maybe I'm not as great of a citizen as I think I am. We live in a great nation. Many of you would agree with me when I say that I think America is awesome. I love my country. I hope that I'm a good American, right?

But in order to do that, really, I think this points it out, we have to know the laws of our land. We have to obey the laws of our land. Most of us, I would say, are probably law-abiding citizens, but maybe we fudge here and there.

Maybe we obey the laws, but we complain about them. Speed limits. But is that all there is to being a citizen? Is it just the laws, just follow the rules, and you'll be a good American? Don't have the police show up at your door, or the FBI, or the feds, and you're fine.

No, I think it's deeper than that. I think we have to love our country, right? I was reading in some original documents about the start of America. Came across a story of Captain Nathan Hale. Maybe some of you history buffs will know his name, but he was captured as a spy by the British in September of 1776.

What happened in 1776? Declaration of Independence. So now, for these ragtag Americans, these colonists, they believed that they were an independent nation. They had declared their independence. Armies and militia were formed, and this Captain Nathan Hale was a part of that.

Captured as a spy, like I said, by the British, put on trial, and sentenced to death. Right before his execution, he requested a clergyman to attend him to his death. He was denied that. He requested a Bible to prepare himself for meeting his creator.

He was denied that. He was allowed, however, to write two letters. He wrote one to his mother, and the other to a brother officer. And then he calmly went to the gallows, and his last words are legend.

He said, I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country. I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country. So I asked you if you were a citizen of the United States, but what if I asked you to raise your hand if you are a citizen of the kingdom of God?

You don't have to raise your hand on this one, just think about it. Are you a citizen of the kingdom of God? D .L. Moody wrote about heaven, about this kingdom, and he said this, I don't think that it's wrong for us to talk about heaven.

I like to locate heaven, and find out all I can about it. I expect to live there in all eternity. If I were going to dwell in a place in this country, if I were going to make it my home, I would want to inquire about the place, about its climate, about the neighbors that I would have, about everything, in fact, that I could learn concerning it.

If any of you were going to emigrate, that would be the way that you would feel. Well, he says, we are going to emigrate in a very little while to a country that is very.

Far away.

We are going to spend eternity in another world, a grand and glorious world where God.

Reigns.

Is it not natural then that we should look and listen, and try to find out who is already there, and what is the route to take? Isn't that an awesome painting of the reality of who we are as citizens of God?

None of us are long for this world, and we may be American citizens, but if you are in Christ, first and foremost, you are a citizen of heaven. Do you know its leader? I mean, if I were to give you an exam, a civics exam about your heavenly citizenship, could you pass it?

Do you know its leader? Do you know its laws? Do you obey them? Do you love your country? Many of you know that we are in a series that I get the opportunity to preach, don't worry, Don hasn't died, he is still around, but he is on vacation and visiting other places for three weeks, so I have three in a row here, but I am in a series on Deuteronomy.

And our passage today is the beginning of the end of the historical prologue. He has actually finished with his recounting of the history of Israel up to this point. He is giving a large speech to all these people who are gathered before him, and now he is about to turn towards the laws.

So he has explained how awesome God is, how great he is, and he has reminded them of all the things that he has done to build them up into a nation that is ready to go in the promised land, and now he is about to tell them, okay, when you get there, this is how you are to conduct yourselves.

And he is going to reiterate the law that he has been teaching them this whole time in the wilderness. And in our passage, he takes a moment to remind them that their success in this promised land depends on two things.

Number one, the presence of God with them as a people. And number two, their absolute loyalty and allegiance to the Word of God and to His law. That would be what would make them successful. That is what they need to work on.

And as they go and accomplish their mission in the promised land, if they held to those two things, if they made sure that God was with them and they obeyed His laws, they would find success. They would become a great nation.

They were a great nation based on God's presence already. So we are talking about dead people, right? They lived a long time ago. Here we are. What can we learn from them? We are still citizens of heaven.

And I think we can learn a lot about how to make not only the kingdom of God great, but our nation great as well. And that is what I hope we find this morning as we read our text. So turn with me to Deuteronomy chapter 4 verses 1 through 8.

Can someone throw out a page number in their Bible? And if you need a Bible, go ahead and raise your hand and Mike back there can, page 128, the guys in the aisles can give you a Bible if you need it, but turn to page 128 with me and we will read Deuteronomy chapter 4 verses 1 through 8.

And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the rules that I am teaching you and do them, that you may live and go in and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers is giving you.

You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you. Your eyes have seen what the Lord did at Baal Peor, for the Lord your God destroyed from among you all the men who followed the Baal of Peor.

But you who held fast to the Lord your God are alive today. See I have taught you statutes and rules as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.

Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who when they hear all these statutes will say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.

For what great nation is there that has a God so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, whenever we call upon Him? And what great nation is there that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today?

I'm going to pray in a minute, but then we'll enter into a time of worship and just a word.

About that.

When we come together and we sing, something powerful takes place. Our band is leading us in song, creating a melody that we all sing to. We're speaking words about God from our lips, words of praise out to Him, and that pleases.

God.

It makes Him glad when His kids talk about how great He is. But it also unites us. Think about it. We have a couple hundred people sitting in this room, and we're all going to be singing the same words to the same tune.

It's a metaphor that together we're a church, and we're coming together, we're uniting together.

To worship our great God.

And I would ask you to think about that as you sing these words. Let's have an awesome time of worshiping this great God that makes such great nations.

Let's pray.

Father, we come to you this morning just humbled by your word. Father, thank you for choosing a people, for revealing yourself to them, for giving them your law. God, in it we see your goodness and your greatness and your mercy.

And Father, we want to learn from it. We want to be a people who listen and do. We don't want to be hearers only. It's kind of easy to be a hearer here in church. It's kind of what it's built for. We hear the word, and maybe we just hear this music, but we're about to sing these words.

To you, God.

And I pray that that would just be the start, that we would be transformed by your presence here, that your spirit would fill us, and when we walk out of here, God, that we would be changed and desiring to walk with you in obedience, to serve you with all of our heart and soul and minds and strength.

We love you, Lord, and be pleased with our singing right now. It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen. Amen.

Thank you, band, and hopefully you had a great time in that time of worship. And just a reminder that we want you to make yourself comfortable, like kind of get set, get ready, because we're going to go.

Feel free to get donuts, coffee, if you have to use the restrooms, they're out this door and then down the hallway at the end, women on the main floor, men up top, but feel free to do what you need to do to pay attention to the word here.

So if we look at verse 1, Moses directs the people. He calls to Israel. Now, God was creating a nation. It was a literal nation, not just a people group anymore, not just kind of a race, although certainly most of them were Hebrew, of Hebrew descent, but he was literally forming a people, a geopolitical power in the land.

They would go to a land that would have boundaries and borders, they would have authorities and structures that organized themselves, and they had a law, a written law that they were to abide by. So they were very much a nation, kind of like we recognize Israel right now, right?

They're a nation over there, they're not just a people group. That's what God was intending to do with his people, to create them to be a nation like those around them. But Moses wants to make it clear what they are to be about.

That's what the book of Deuteronomy is, that's what most of what he had written in the Pentateuch here, the first five books of the Bible, all written by Moses, are about. They're about teaching the people what they should be about as they go in and accomplish their mission of taking over the land.

So he says, I want you to listen to the statutes and the rules that I'm teaching you. How many of you need a little help when someone is giving you important information? I would bet that some of us men, when our wives are talking to us, need to hear this, don't we?

So, husband, we're doing this and that, uh-huh, uh-huh, it's going about your day, right? Sometimes our wives have to go and grab us and say, listen to me, right? I'm like that. When my wife talks about schedules with me, oftentimes I'm lost in thought, I'm going about my day, and she will often have to go, sometimes even grabbing my face and turning me so that I can have eye contact with her so that she will tell me, you need to listen.

Right now.

I'm explaining something that will be important for you later, right? And I go, okay, I'm with you, right? It would seem just obvious that, of course, we're supposed to listen to God, of course we're supposed to do what He says, but how many of us need that reminder when we're talking about God and His rules?

How many of us show up to church and we're not ready to listen? We got our clothes on, we put on our makeup, we got the shoes, we got the kids ready, right? And we show up here and we're just like, what are we doing this afternoon?

Are our hearts ready to listen? And more than listen, why are we listening so closely? What are we supposed to be doing? Obeying, right? I love what he says here. Listen to the statutes and do them. He's not leaving anything to be misunderstood.

I'm telling you these things so that you will do them. A lot of you will maybe think of the James passage, right? Faith without deeds is what?

Dead.

God is not, as I preach, you'll probably hear a bunch of quips that my dad gave me as a kid, you know, but here's another one. I'm not just talking to hear myself talk, right? Any dad say that one? I'm not just speaking to hear myself talk, I'm telling you to do something, right?

Well, God's the same way. He's not giving us these statutes and rules so that we would just go, oh yeah, that's a good idea, God. Good one, you're a genius. And then we just go and do what we want. No, he's giving us the statutes and the rules so that we would do them because he wanted to shape us, he wanted to shape Israel into the people that he intended them to be.

So they had a mission and Moses makes it very clear that if they were going to succeed in taking over this promised land and going in and removing the seven nations that were before them and dwelling in this good place, they had to obey God.

They had to listen to these statutes and rules and he says that would be their life. This will be your life. This is what will cause you to succeed. This is what will bring you peace and happiness if you do these things.

So this law that he's about to get to, a couple things that we can observe about it. The first is that it's from God and look at verse two. Later in the verse he says that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you.

Oftentimes we talk of the law of Moses, especially when in the New Testament we're trying to distinguish between maybe something Jesus said and something that was said in the Old Testament. But what did Moses understand about everything that he was giving to the people?

That these words were from God. Remember Moses was a guy that spoke to God. He went up onto Mount Horeb and spent forty days fasting in the presence of God. And God delivered to him the law that he brought down to the people.

The ten commandments but then also the statutes. And oftentimes if something happened that Moses didn't know how to deal with, he would go into the tent of meeting. He would approach the Lord and say God we've got this situation, what do you want to do.

About it?

And then God would issue a command and he would come out and teach the people. So this law is not just man-made, it is from God. Moses clearly taught it. He didn't let us try and struggle and guess at what we were supposed to do or the Israelites were supposed to do.

He gave it all to them very clearly. That's something I love about our nation, right? Any of us can go online and we can download the Constitution. I actually had an app that was like, I don't know, documents of the U .S. or whatever, and I had the Constitution right in my pocket.

Has anyone read the Constitution all the way through?

Anybody?

Probably citizens, it would be a good thing to do, you know, read the Constitution. But it's not hidden, right? It's just out there for us to read at our leisure. No one's trying to pull a fast one with us, at least in terms of what the Constitution says or the rules that we're trying to obey, and neither was God trying to do that for his people.

He wanted them to know exactly what they were required to do. And Moses was a good teacher. And I don't think that the teaching was just about putting something on a piece of paper and then throwing it out there for people to read somewhere.

I think that Moses was the kind of leader that interacted with his people, and as situations came up, he helped them apply the law. That was also the purposes of the judges in Israel. When something was happening or a case needed to be discerned or disputed, they would come up to the judges, they would go back to the law, they would talk about what rules applied in the case, they would take the details of the situation, and then they would make a judgment.

I think as pastors, that's part of what we're to do as well. You know, I don't want you just to memorize this, but I want you to know it so that when you come upon the situations in your life that are personal, that are actually the things that you're going through, that you'll know how to take this and follow the Lord in the midst of that situation, whatever it is.

So Moses was teaching them. And it was a good law. Many of us Christians, I think, begin to screw up here. Because we know that we're not saved by following the rules, right? By grace, through faith, and sometimes when we preach, and it's probably a fault of those who are teaching and preaching, we disparage the Old Testament, kind of.

Maybe we don't say it literally, but we really give this impression that the stuff that God did back then, it wasn't very good, it didn't work, it couldn't make the people righteous, so I'm just so glad that we don't need to deal with that anymore.

Some of us get that impression that we can just, like, jettison the Old Testament, you know, we don't really need to pay attention to it, it's just a bunch of old, fluffy stuff. Anyone ever kind of felt like that was the message being communicated a little bit?

The Old Testament, whatever, it's kind of lame, right? But it wasn't lame. It was good and wise, and made the people an understanding people. And why? Because of who it came from. Jeremiah 51 .15 says this, of God, It is He who made the earth by His power, who established the world by His wisdom, and by His understanding stretched out the heavens.

Who established the world by His wisdom, and by His understanding stretched out the heavens. I love science stuff, I love, like, the cosmos and physics and all that, and if you ever watch these documentaries, I mean, some of it's probably all weird, but a lot of it's like good science.

And I just stand in amazement, I have no problem looking at the things that they're discovering of our world and going, God is incredible. He is an architect. He is an engineer, beyond all engineers. He has structured this place with such intricacy, with such vastness and power, and yet it's so small and so simple and so amazing.

I just stand in awe of the work that God has done. And it's that God who made this world, and made you and me, who wrote some rules. Do you think they're probably good? Yeah, even if they're weird, even if they're about goats or sheep, they had a reason.

They did something for the people that it was communicated to. It was a good law, given directly from the God of the universe. But it was also complete, and Moses made it very clear that the law was not up for people to pick willy-nilly what they would follow or what they wouldn't, nor were they to add.

To it.

Ironic, if you know the situation of the Pharisees and the scribes that would come about later in New Testament times. These people thought that they could help people apply the Word of God by adding to the rules, and so they had all these traditions.

And it got to the point where some of their traditions undid the original law. And how many times in the Old Testament do we see people, number one, right, you shall have no other gods before me, and we'll look at a situation in just a minute.

They decide to not follow, number one. They worship other gods. Moses is saying, don't do that. You take the whole counsel of God. Jumping ahead to a little application here, I mean, you know, our Bible's a little bit different from that law, but this is still the Word of God, front to back, inspired by Him, given for a reason to help instruct us in righteousness and godliness.

And man, there's a bunch of us, and sometimes it's me, who decide to take the parts that I like and leave out the parts that I don't. And any time you begin to take away from the Word of God or you begin to add to it your own rules, you're in danger.

You're in danger of missing the wisdom of God, the understanding of God, and potentially suffering the consequence of that. So he teaches them about this law. And this was the thing that they were to hold precious, to know forwards and backwards, to be conscious of every day, living out this law.

So he gives them this command, and then he warns them, and he takes a minute to kind of go back and say, hey, remember when. If you think I'm joking here, many of you were alive when this happened, that situation with Baal of Peor.

Turn with me, if you have your Bible, to Numbers chapter 25. Numbers chapter 25. Wrong way. It's to the left. Numbers chapter 25. Numbers isn't just about numbers. There's a lot of the history of Israel, right?

So there are people, they're wandering in the desert. God's doing a lot of things with them. He's demonstrating his power to them. He's forming them as a people. They've already been rescued. So should they know that God is awesome?

Have they basically covenanted with him to follow him at this point?

Yes.

They are his people. Their allegiance is to him. And look what happened when they came across some of the people of the land. Starting at verse 1, While Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to whore after the daughters of Moab.

These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. That should be like someone stabbing a needle into our ears. To think of the people of God bowing down and worshiping Baal of Peor.

And look what verse 3 says, So Israel yoked himself to Baal of Peor, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. Now that doesn't mean that God was sitting up in his throne getting all poopy pants about this.

When the Bible says that the anger of the Lord was kindled against the people, it often means that there was a physical manifestation of judgment. So he was killing people with a plague. He was so furious that his people who he had saved, that were called by his name, who had covenanted with him, were now whoring themselves, prostituting themselves, committing adultery with him, with this God, that he begins to kill them.

And the Lord said to Moses, Take all of the chiefs of the people and hang them in the sun before the Lord. Hang could also mean pierce them through, put them on spikes. That the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel.

And Moses said to the judges of Israel, Each of you kill those of his men who have yoked themselves to Baal of Peor. Then if you keep reading, you'll read about Phineas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, who at one point sees Israelite prancing along with a woman, waving at Moses, going to the bedroom with this woman.

Mocking Moses and God and everything that they stood for, sucked into the revelry and debauchery. And Phineas takes a spike and he goes in there and he runs them both through with a spike. And God says, I'll stop now.

And he ended the plague. But 24 ,000 people had died. But he says, that's the kind of jealousy that I'm after. That's how serious I am about not worshiping other gods. And Moses is going back to this story, right?

To say, you better be loyal. Don't let that happen again. Don't go back to a point where you get so caught up with what's going around you and so enticed by the sinfulness of the other people that you forget your God because he may bring judgment on you again.

Those of you who yoked yourself to that idol fell and died. If we're talking about this metaphor of being in the kingdom, of being a citizen of heaven, they were essentially traitors. They were traitors to their nation and to their God.

And they died. And Moses is saying, don't go back there. But he says in verse four, those of you who held fast to the Lord are alive today. Those of you who held fast to the Lord are alive today. And I love the opposing images that that creates.

And it's the same choice for all of us every day, isn't it? We can either choose to yoke ourself to sin, to yoke ourselves to the things that are not God, when we follow our own way. When we do wrong, when we do evil, when we satisfy ourselves.

It's like we're going right up to the devil. And we're saying, yep, I'll pull with you. Like two cows stuck in the same yoke. Moses says, don't do that. Don't choose sin. Don't choose to disobey. Instead, cling fast to the Lord your God.

Hold on to him with all your effort and all your might. That's why I've actually called this series, what I've called it, Clinging to God on the Way from Here to There, because throughout the whole message of Deuteronomy, Moses keeps coming back to this.

Hold tight. Don't let God go. You're going to be tempted to leave him behind. You're going to be tempted to do your own thing. It's going to be hard. You're going to have to say no to your friends. You're not going to get invited to the party anymore.

You're going to be weird. You're going to be laughed at. Don't let go. Hold fast to the Lord your God. That, he says, will be your life. And he gets to the end of our passage here in chapter 4, and he says some things about what will happen to this people, or the type of people that they will be, or the type of nation that they are.

And he says, what great nation? And he says a couple of things there after that. What great nation has a God as close to it as the Lord our God is to us, or has laws so wise and righteous? This is interesting, the language that he uses here of closeness of God.

In that time, in Mesopotamia, kings would be judged by how many laws or rules that they had. But the trick was, none of their gods were very close. They had an understanding of the cosmos as being run by certain laws and organized by these deities who floated out there in space.

And his job as a king was to make his best guess at what those laws should reflect in his society. And so he would write down laws, and then he would go and offer them up to his pagan god as a sign that he had worked really hard to try and figure out what the god wanted.

The god Shemesh was the god of justice. And what a difference between Shemesh and Yahweh. Moses is saying that you, Israel, don't serve a god that's way out there distant, who has hidden himself somewhere in the fabric of the universe.

You serve a god who has revealed himself to you. Personally, you've heard his voice on the mountain. You've seen his great deeds. You've seen the acts that he has performed. And not only that, he's articulated his expectations for you.

He's written them down. He's given you rules and statutes. He's revealed his heart and his character to you in his law. God is not like those other gods. God is near and present. And not only that, but when you call on him, he hears and he acts and he listens.